User blog:Eluwenie/Starting out for me (other than tutorial)
Before Mines of Gloomingdeep was introduced, we had to do things the hard way. I started out in Kelethin (my home city, Ranger). I noticed that leveling up was difficult and not an easy task. I went near Felwithe and killed bats and certain wasps to gain experience. Also I made my own armor, each class has armor you can make on your own without buying anything, it took a while because back then everyone was hunting for the same stuff and it was very hard to get. Eventually I got all the armor I wanted, I started slowly inching my way back towards Kelethin killing things along the way, leveling up inch by inch.. after that I went to the orc camps, those took a while because they are in groups and using a low level harmony spell I took them down one by one. I kept doing this over and over until I reached a decent level to go into the orc city (forgive me but it's been too long, I don't remember the name of it). I started out with camping in between that and Greater Faydark to regain mana.. there were no mercs at the time so it was all just me and maybe 2 or 3 people in a group from time to time. I would kill near the ent. to that zone and keep killing until mobs turned light blue or even green, some hit harder than others, especially those darn legos. If you spend hours/days at a time you can rack up some decent plat there too, which I did and bought better weapons. I believe I stayed there until I was around lvl 20 or so, then I went into Luclin, I started camping in Seru and that took me up 10 more levels or so. I also did the caves as well in Luclin because there were some tricky mobs there and sooner or later it became too easy and the pathing was easy for me to follow after a while. I stayed in that area in Seru and DSH for a good length of time. I eventually went to Grimling Forest and it was difficult at first because again, camps of grimlings and I needed a couple of people in group for a while. I stayed there for another good 10 levels or so. I did group for a while, but I ended up prefering soloing, I wanted to explore Norrath on my own, and the same people wanted to kill the same stuff, but I was getting tired of it. I also ended up in OT for a bit of time for a few levels. That's a good place to go near Skyfire but watch out for those dragoons at night, this is where tracking comes in very handy for a Ranger. There really isn't a "guide" to tell you where you should hunt next at a certain level, so I asked around and the different guilds I've been at told me where to go. Since Rangers are a hybrid class and not pure warriors or pure druids (a bit of both mixed together), it was challenging to level up this character, and I couldn't tell you how many endless days/weeks/months I spent in Bloodfields camping the same thing near the zoneline over and over without a merc. WoS was my next zone I tried and did quite well there both in and out of group. MPG was the next zone I tried and I loved it there because the mobs are few and far between, you could stay in the hallways and just kill and find a good area to camp for a long time. Then it got too easy, so I tried to find somewhere else to go. I found Dragonscale Hills was tough at first with the faries attacking anyone, I died quite a bit doing that and had someone to help me along so I wouldn't die so much, I should also mention by this point I had much better armor, half way decent augs (they are crap now since I'm level 85), but I still hunt here to get an extra AA everytime and also go to the next zone killing treants near the druid circle (again forgive me, I can't remember all the zone names). That's where I am now, killing treants. Prior to Dragonscale I did hunt in Bloody Kith for a time, but it became too easy, also Oceangreen was a challenge because undeads are hard to kill with a Ranger. I have tried Field of Scale but I'm not strong enough yet even with my healer merc. I really need better augs but I'm not sure where to find them on my own. I do have some HoT armor and the rest is cultural. I spent quite a ton of plat getting cultural but eventually I got most of the pieces. I also cannot swim underwater anymore without running out of air, so any help in that field would be appreciated as well. Thanks for reading :) Category:Blog posts